Camila Williams | Living Well CBT

Book Review: Boundaries

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Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No, to Take Control of Your Life by Drs. Cloud and Townsend is a Christian/Biblically based book on an essential life skill: setting healthy boundaries. I did not know this book was Biblically based when it was first recommended to me, and though I am still searching for a good secular book I can recommend, this book does an excellent job in educating the reader about what are boundary problems, where they come from, and how to address them. Setting healthy boundaries is a skill that most survivors of trauma, abuse, or controlling environments needs to learn. I plan to do a blog series on boundaries later on but for now here is a cliff notes version of the basic boundary problems:

4 Types of Boundary Problems:

  • Can’t Say No – this person is a compliant, people pleaser. …read more

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Book Review: The One Thing

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The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller is intended for an audience of business employees who are trying to be more productive and thus hopefully more successful. This book was recommended to me when I was starting up my private practice. I felt like I was being pulled in so many directions with so many things that needed to get done. This book helped remind me to prioritize my tasks and focus on the one thing that would help me advance my private practice the most. This helped with my decision making and task list. If you’ve ever stared at your To Do List and had no idea where to start, start by reading this book.

Keller’s message is in the same vein as McKeown’s message in Essentialism; however, I felt it was easier to apply Keller’s message in the moment. As a psychologist, I love it when authors present things within a cognitive framework. Keller starts his book out with “The Lies.” These are dysfunctional thoughts that derail us and keep us stuck. He then follows that up with “The Truth.” These are healthy thoughts, that allow us to move forward. He backs these thoughts up by summarizing the research in this field (examining the evidence is the primary task of thought challenging in CBT). For example, Keller reviews why the belief that we can multitask and depend on willpower to get things done are lies. The truth is our brain can only genuinely focus on one task at a time, and our willpower is finite and it runs out (which is why resisting that bowl of cereal late at night is so hard when you’ve put in so much effort throughout the whole day to be good). The topic of willpower comes up in a lot of these types of books, most notably Mel Robbin’s The 5 Second Rule, where she talks about why we’ll “never feel like it” when it comes to doing things we know we have to. The overarching message here, is that we can’t rely on willpower and need to learn to create habits and routines to keep us on track and to basically parent ourselves.

A visualization Keller uses about the importance of choosing the One Thing right now that is the most likely to help your project, job, goal, move forward is of dominos:…read more

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Book Review: The Optimistic Child

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The Optimistic Child by Martin Seligman, Ph.D. teaches you how to “immunize” your child against depression by teaching them how to think optimistically. Dr. Seligman is the former president of the American Psychological Association and the founder of the Positive Psychology movement. I absolutely loved his book and I recommend it for anyone, even if you don’t have kids. It is a very dense read. It did make me feel like this was a textbook for a course on child psychology, but what you learn from it is invaluable. The Optimistic Child basically outlines, in a very clear, easy to follow manner, how to use cognitive behavioral therapy in your life. If you want to know what a CBT therapist does in session read this book! Dr. Seligman advocates that every parent has to first learn how to use these skills themselves before they can teach it to their own kids. My poor kids have a psychologist for a mother and I of course read this thinking about how I can help my own kids but the target range for the program here is for 8 to 13 year olds. Children under 8 years don’t yet have the ability for meta-cognition so the approach is a bit different but Dr. Seligman addresses this too at the end of his book.

A few of the key highlights from the book:

Optimism is not just a look at the silver lining, think positive, or wear rose colored glasses approach to life. Optimism, as taught in cognitive behavioral therapy, is how you explain the things that go on around you. It is your explanatory style. Dr. Seligman outlines 3 patterns of thinking that differ the most between optimists and pessimists:…read more

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Book Review: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

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Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown is another great reminder that our society today is too cluttered. To many things demand our attention from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed. McKeown clearly summarizes the research and uses examples to demonstrate that we can all truly accomplish more by doing less. The lesson that stuck with me the most from this book is the graphic below:

We can progress a little in a lot of different areas of our lives, or we can progress a lot more, and achieve a lot more by focusing on the one area that is essential. Of course, this can bring up fears…read more

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